Monthly Archives: March 2020

President Donald Trump again attacked the media at his latest coronavirus press briefing, but the trigger was a question about a tweet he sent earlier on Wednesday afternoon, claiming that the media wants the economy to falter to hurt his chances at reelection.

Trump tweeted, The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!

But that drew questions among journalists on whether his pronouncement that he wants to lift social distancing guidelines and reopen the country by Easter is based on his own political considerations.

At the briefing, CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid asked,Is this Easter timeline based on your political interests?

The media would like to see me do poorly in the election, Trump responded.

Then Reid interjected,Lawmakers and economists on both sides of the aisle have said that reopening the country by Easter is not a good idea. What is that plan based on?

I think there are certain people who would like it not to open so quickly, Trump said. I think there are certain people who would like it to do financially poorly because they feel that would be very good as far as defeating me at the polls. I dont think that is so, but I think it is so that there are a lot of people in your profession that would like that to happen.

He went on, telling Reid, I think it is very clear that there are people in your profession that write fake news you do.

He added, They would love to see me, for whatever reason, because we have done one hell of a job. No one has done the job that we have done. And it is lucky that you have this group here right now for this problem. Or you wouldnt even have a country left.

After Trump left the briefing, Vice President Mike Pence and other members of the coronavirus task force continued to answer questions. CNN and MSNBC eventually switched away from the briefings while Fox News stayed with it.

The briefings have generated large audiences for the news networks. According to Nielsen, 11 million viewers watched Tuesdays briefing on the three news channels, with Fox News drawing 5.5 million, CNN garnering 3.1 million and MSNBC with 2.4 million. Those figures do not include the audiences watching on broadcast networks and web platforms.

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Donald Trumps Latest Media Attack Invites Questions Of Whether He Wants Easter Reopening To Boost Election Chances - Deadline

President Donald Trump's reelection campaign issued a cease-and-desist letter to television stations that aired an alleged "patently false, misleading, and deceptive" campaign advertisement by a political action committee.

A video created by Priorities USA Action Fund (PUSA), a PAC which has supported Democratic presidential candidates, showed a fluid chart of coronavirus cases while unflattering comments previously made by Trump were played in the background.

Some of the remarks included Trump downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak.

"PUSA stitched together fragments from multiple speeches by President Trump to fraudulently and maliciously imply that President Trump called the coronavirus outbreak a 'hoax,'" the letter said, adding that Trump was "abundantly clear" in referring to the "Democrat's politicization of the coronavirus outbreak" when making the description.

"Because PUSA's ad's central point is deliberately false and misleading, your station has an obligation to cease and desist from airing it immediately to comply with FCC licensing requirements, to serve the public interest, and to avoid costly and time-consuming litigation," the letter added.

Another ad using the clip also appears to be misleading. Trump's comments about the "coronavirus" and "hoax" were made during a campaign rally in late February, according to The Washington Post, and were edited so that he appeared to be saying the words together. In the actual speech, Trump made several remarks after he mentioned the coronavirus and his reference to a hoax.

The full quote as transcribed by The Post is below:

"Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right?Coronavirus.They're politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs, you say, 'How's President Trump doing?', 'Oh, nothing, nothing.' They have no clue, they don't have any clue. They can't even count their votes in Iowa, they can't even count. No, they can't. They can't count their votes. One of my people came up to me and said, 'Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.' That didn't work out too well. They couldn't do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they've been doing it since he got in. It's all turning, they lost. It's all turning, think of it, think of it. Andthis is their new hoax.But you know we did something that's been pretty amazing. We have 15 people in this massive country and because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that."

While the ad appears to be misleading, Trump and his administration repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus or delivered mixed messages about the seriousness of the pandemic, prior to the White House issuing its 15-day coronavirus isolation guidelines. And despite the warnings from public health professionals, Trump has said he'd like to reopen businesses by Easter.

At least 1,050 people in the US had died from the new coronavirus as of early Thursday morning.

"The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA," Trump tweeted on February 24. "We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart."

About 69,000 cases have been reported in all 50 states, Washington, DC, and US territories. The federal government's response has also been criticized for not heeding earlier warnings from US officials and the lack of available equipment around the country for healthcare professionals.

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Trump campaign trying to remove a video saying coronavirus is a 'hoax' - Business Insider - Business Insider

YES AND NO. The thing to understand about Donald Trump is that putting others before self is not something he can do, even temporarily. His attempts to convey facts that dont serve his perceived self-interest or to express empathy are forced, scripted, and always short-lived, since such reactions are alien to him.

This president does not have the capacity to listen to, synthesize, and internalize information that does not immediately serve his greatest needs: praise, fealty, adoration. He finds it intolerable when those things are missing, a clinical psychologist told me. Praise, applause, and accolades seem to calm him and boost his confidence. Theres no room for that now, and so hes growing irritable and needing to create some way to get some positive attention.

She added that the pandemic and its economic fallout overwhelm Trumps capacity to understand, are outside of his ability to internalize and process, and [are] beyond his frustration tolerance. He is neither curious nor interested; facts are tossed aside when inconvenient or [when they] contradict his parallel reality, and people are disposable unless they serve him in some way.

ITS USEFUL HERE to recall that Trumps success as a politician has been built on his ability to impose his will and narrative on others, to use his experience on a reality-television show and his skill as a con man to shape public impressions in his favor, evenor perhaps, especiallyif those impressions are at odds with reality. He convinced a good chunk of the country that he is a wildly successful businessman and knows more about campaign finance, the Islamic State, the courts, the visa system, trade, taxes, the debt, renewable energy, infrastructure, borders, and drones than anyone else.

Read: How the pandemic will end

But in this instance, Trump isnt facing a political problem he can easily spin his way out of. Hes facing a lethal virus. It doesnt give a damn what Donald Trump thinks of it or tweets about it. Spin and lies about COVID-19, including that it will soon magically disappear, as Trump claimed it would, dont work. In fact, they have the opposite effect. Misinformation will cause the virus to increase its deadly spread.

So as the crisis deepensas the body count increases, hospitals are overwhelmed, and the economy contracts, perhaps dramaticallyits reasonable to assume that the president will reach for the tools he has used throughout his life: duplicity and denial. He will not allow facts that are at odds with his narrative to pierce his magnetic field of deception.

But what happens to Trump psychologically and emotionally when things dont turn around in the time period he wants? What happens if the tricks that have allowed him to walk away from scandal after scandal dont work quite so well, if the doors of escape are bolted shut, and if it dawns on even some of his supporterspeople who will watch family members, friends, and neighbors contract the disease, some number of whom will diethat no matter what Trump says, he cant alter this epidemiological reality?

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The President Is Trapped - The Atlantic

Donald Trump has accused the media of wanting to keep the US economy shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic to undermine his chances of reelection.

The US president has been pushing to reopen swaths of the country by Easter 12 April despite warnings from medical experts that measures such as closing businesses and social distancing need more time to work.

The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success, he tweeted on Wednesday. The real people want to get back to work ASAP.

At Wednesdays White House coronavirus task force briefing, Trump followed up with an aggressive denial that the Easter timeline is based on his political interests. The media would like to see me do poorly in the election, he said.

Challenged by a reporter, Trump, who has long used the press as a punching bag, said with exasperation: Just so you understand are you ready? I think there are certain people that would like it not to open so quickly. I think there are certain people that would like it to do financially poorly because they think that would be very good as far as defeating me at the polls.

The president added: I dont know if thats so, but I do think its so that there are people in your profession that would like that to happen. I think its very clear that there are people in your profession that write fake news.

Gesturing around the briefing room with his hands, he said: You do. She does. There are people in your profession that write fake news. They would love to see me for whatever reason, because weve done one hell of a job, nobodys done the job that weve done and its lucky that you have this group here right now for this problem because you wouldnt even have a country left.

Trump has long tied his political fortunes to the economy in general and stock market in particular, but the coronavirus outbreak has wiped out the stock gains of his presidency. On Wednesday he reiterated his call for restarting the economy at Easter, even though US infections have now topped 60,000 and scientists have warned of disastrous consequences for public health.

Its time, he said. People want to get back to work. I want to get our country back.

But he sought to provide reassurance that he would heed the advice of public health officials. Im not going to do anything rash or hastily, I dont do that.

People who return to work could still take precautions, Trump claimed. Theyre not going to walk around hugging and kissing each other in the office when they come back. Even though they may feel like it.

The deadline goal drew criticism from Democratic front runner Joe Biden, the presidents likely opponent in the November election. Now hes suggesting he wants to get the country opened back open by Easter, Biden told reporters at a virtual press conference. Look, we all want to get back to normal as quickly as possible, but we have a lot to do to make that possible. We have to do it in a smart way not on some arbitrary or symbolic timeline.

The former vice president, speaking via video link from his basement, added: It would be a catastrophic thing to do for our people and for our economy if we sent people back to work just as we were beginning to see the impact of social distancing take hold only to unleash a second spike in infections.

Bidens Democratic primary with Senator Bernie Sanders has been paralysed by the crisis, denying both men political oxygen, and the long term political implications remain unpredictable. Opinion polls suggest a majority of Americans approve of Trumps handling of the crisis, despite his early downplaying of the threat.

At Wednesdays briefing, Trump also urged Congress to pass a historic $2tn stimulus bill negotiated by his administration and Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate. I will sign it immediately, he said, adding that it would mark a great day for the American worker and American families.

The bill, delayed by bitter partisan battles, includes funding to send $1,200 cheques to many Americans, $500bn to help distressed companies, including $25bn for airlines, and $367bn in loans to sustain small businesses.

Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, thanked Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell minority leader Chuck Schumer for their efforts. We couldnt be more pleased with the unprecedented response from the Senate to protect American workers and American businesses, he told reporters.

Our expectation is this bill passes tonight and gets to the House tomorrow. And they pass it. We need to get this money into the American economy and American workers.

Meanwhile Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that the coronavirus could be seasonal and cyclical. I know well be successful in putting this down now, he said. But we really need to be prepared for another cycle.

Trump also offered some bizarre digressions, boasting about his efforts to make Nato allies pay more, touting his big, beautiful wall and defending the packages $25m funding for the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

This was a request from the Democrats because of the fact that they have a facility thats essentially closed up, he said. If I wanted to go there tonight to look at Romeo and Juliet, Id love to go see Romero and Juliet...

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Trump accuses media of wanting to keep economy shut to hurt his reelection - The Guardian

An NPR station in Seattle said that it no longer will carry live coverage of President Donald Trumps coronavirus briefings because of concerns that they feature unchecked misleading or false information.

KUOW is monitoring White House briefings for the latest news on the coronavirus and we will continue to share all news relevant to Washington State with our listeners, the station tweeted. However, we will not be airing the briefings live due to a pattern of false or misleading information provided that cannot be fact checked in real time.

Most recently, Trump has called for lifting of social distancing guidelines in the near future, perhaps by Easter, even though public health professionals are still grappling with the spread of the virus. He also has made false claims about the availability of tests, the timeline for finding a vaccine and the potential benefits of a treatment that includes the ingredient chloroquine. While there is some promising study of its potential use, it has not it has not been approved for treatment. NBC News reported on one Arizona man who died after ingesting chloroquine phosphate, and his wife said that they learned about its use after watching a briefing. The chloroquine they used was part of a product use to clean fish tanks, not for medical purposes.

The news networks have been covering the briefings live, but CNN and MSNBC cut away from them on Monday, as the event stretched beyond an hour.

Related StoryCoronavirus: Cineworld Re-Thinks Redundancy Plan & Tells Staff That All Workers Paid By The Hour Will Now Be Furloughed Under UK Government Scheme

Deputy White House Press Secretary Judd Deere criticized the channels for the decision asdisgraceful, but an MSNBC spokesperson said that after airing the press conference for over an hour we cut away because the information no longer appeared to be valuable to the important ongoing discussion around public health. A spokeswoman for CNN said, If the White House wants to ask for time on the network, they should make an official request. Otherwise we will make our own editorial decisions.

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Seattle NPR Station Says It Will No Longer Carry Donald Trumps Coronavirus Briefings Live Because Of Misinformation - Deadline

Kanye West is opening up about the public's outrage over his political views.

The rapper-producer-turned-evangelist has come under fire in recent years since voicing his support of President Trump. But in a new interview with WSJ. Magazine, the fashion and shoe designer revealed just what it felt like for strangers to assume his political views based on his race, among other things.

Im a black guy with a red [MAGA] hat, can you imagine? ...It reminded me of how I felt as a black guy before I was famous, when I would walk in a restaurant and people would look at you like you were going to steal something. This is your place, Ye, dont talk about apparel. This is your place, Ye, youre black, so youre a Democrat,'" he told the magazine.

KIM KARDASHIAN, KYLIE JENNER FORCED TO TEMPORARILY HALT PRODUCTION ON BEAUTY LINES

Kanye West attends the WSJ. Magazine 2019 Innovator Awards at the Museum of Modern Art on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019, in New York. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

"Classism, protectionism -- not just racism, he added. Classism is like living on a bookshelf. The more money you have, the higher you go. And you get to the top and look over and what do you see? Fear.

West confirmed to the outlet that he did not vote for Trump in the 2016 presidential election because he didn't vote at all. Had he been a registered voter at the time, however, Trump would have received his support, he said.

The multi-faceted designer and artist also opened up about his lucrative career, comparing hisfan-favorite Yeezy brandto the likes of McDonald's and Apple.

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From left, Kim Kardashian West, North West, Kanye West and Joel Osteen answer questions after the 11 a.m. service at Lakewood Church, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke)

"I believe that Yeezy is the McDonalds and the Apple of apparel, West told the outlet. In order to make the Apple of apparel the next Gap, it has to be a new invention. To invent something thats so good that you dont even get credit for it because its the norm.

The rapper, who segued into a new musical genre thanks to his star-studded Sunday Service church performances,added that he believes his success in music does not automatically result in success in other industries.

Speaking of his accomplishments to date, Kim Kardashian's husband noted that he does not describe himself as "ambitious" -- in fact, it's a word he never wants to be synonymous with.

TAYLOR SWIFT SLAMS KANYE WEST'S FORMER MANAGER SCOOTER BRAUN FOR 'MANIPULATIVE BULLYING,' BUYING HER MASTERS

"Im Kanye West. The word ambitious is beneath my abilities, he told the outlet. Im just a doer. You can see in my eyes theres not one bit of fear.

This week,West found himself embroiled in more drama from the past. Anewly leaked video clipof his infamous phone call with Taylor Swift made its way online over the weekend, reigniting the feud around his "Famous" lyric, I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, Why? I made that b---- famous."

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In response to Swift's recent implication that Kardashian doctored the clips she released on Snapchat four years ago, Kim tweeted:I never edited the footage (another lie) - I only posted a few clips on Snapchat to make my point and the full video that recently leaked doesnt change the narrative."

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Kanye West talks support of Donald Trump, says being black led to false assumptions about his political views - Fox News

Donald Trump, reality-TVphony to his core, clearly believes all he needs to do to erase his almost unfathomable levels of failure that have led to the coronavirus crisis is to play-act being a resolute leader on the teevee. Having spent weeks denying, minimizingand outright lying aboutthe coronavirus threat, Trump now seizes liveairtime every day to preen about what a strong and capable leader he is and also to present himself as the biggest victim of this crisis, even as people die and millions find their jobs are threatened even as he does nothing consequential but tweet, lie and boost his own ego.

Trump's commitment to being seen as the conquering hero (while doing as littleas possible) is a result of his bottomless narcissism, of course. New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman indicated on CNNthat Trump took over the daily coronavirus task force briefings from Vice President Mike Pence because he was jealous of all the attention Pence was getting. Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair also noted on MSNBC that his White House sources say Trump "has been furious and frustrated at New York Gov.Andrew Cuomo, who has been holding these very widely well-received early morning press conferences" because, of course, Trump sees it as stealing his precious spotlight.

There's good reason to fear that Trump's reality-TV simulacrum of a competent leader is working to fool Americans. His approval rating has jumped, hitting almost 50% in the latest Gallup poll, which is as highit's ever been. Indeed, polling repeatedly shows the majority of Americans believe Trump is doing a great job handling this crisis.

He isn't. On the contrary, Trump is largelyto blame for the horrific situation we now face, where the disease is spreading rapidly and the economy is tanking. As difficult as the task may be, especially with so much else going on, it is critical that journalists and activists do everything in their power to remind the public that the only reason the situation is so bad is that Trump screwed up.

The biggest screw-up that caused this situation was Trump's belief that any problem can be made to go away by simply lying about it and denying it. To that end, he did everything he could to hide the fact that the coronavirus had already reachedthe U.S. and by trying to hide the problem, he allowed the virus to spread unchecked through the population. Now it's too late to do anything but embrace drastic lockdown procedures nationwide, which are grinding the economy to a halt and, likelykickstarting what will amount to another Great Depression.

The sheer number of lies Trump told to bamboozle the public and the markets into thinking coronavirus was no big deal is too large to list in detail, though the New York Times published a lengthy breakdown last week. He promised it would "work out well" in January and suggested that a vaccine would be available shortly (atbest, it's next year). Throughout February, Trump promised that the virus "miraculously goes away" and said that "the numbers are going to get progressively better" (they have been getting progressively worse). In March, he was continuing to call it "mild" and saying "I'm not concerned at all."

He told these lies despite the fact that, as various reports have showed, intelligence services had been briefing him about the threat of coronavirus for months.Instead of trusting his own intelligence reports that the Chinese government was covering up the extent of the viral spread, the Washington Post reported, Trump instead chose to believe the notoriously dishonest President Xi Jinping of China, thanking Xifor his "transparency."

Meanwhile, South Korea was swinging into action, instituting a plan to corral the spread of the virus without facing the economic devastation of a lockdown. Thatnation has 50 million people and is one of the most densely populated in the world, and yet wasable to dramatically slowthe spread of the disease without much curtailment of people's freedom. The key, according to Science magazine, was the institution of widespread testing that allowed doctors to focus resources and quarantine efforts on people who were already infected, instead of locking people at home and crippling the economy.

While Italy has seen the coronavirus run rampant, the small town that was the center of the nation's outbreak has managed to curb its spreadby implementing mass testing. Testing on that scale is not possible in a country as big as the U.S., but these results show that the major restrictions and huge economic impactscould have been much reduced with astrategic approach that involved mass testing instead of treating everyone likea potential vector.

But Trump quite obviously didn't want mass testing, and seemedto believe he could hide the spread of the disease by preventing any measurements of it. As Politico reporter Dan Diamond told NPR, Trump did "not push to do aggressive additional testing in recent weeks" because "more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak," and Trump believed "the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president."

What happened instead is that we have no idea how many cases there are in the U.S., but weknow for sure it's a lot more than what's being counted almost certainly orders of magnitude larger. Because there's no way to know, people are in a panic and governments are shutting down most public-facing businesses, grinding the economy to a halt. Trump continues to lie, claiming tests areeasily available. Inreality, they continueto be rationed across the country, sothere's no telling how long it will be until it's safe to return to normal.

"What's happening here, in this country, was avoidable," the Atlantic explained in an analysis of this disaster."Nearly every flaw in America's response to the virus has one source: America did not test enough people for COVID-19."

Even thoughTrump's pathological lying is the principal cause of this disaster, he hasn't backed off this lie-all-the-time strategy. He has started claiming there's an effective treatment using drugs that have potentially severe side effects, even though there's as yet no scientific evidence for this claim. (One person has already died due to taking Trump's advice.) He's making noises about "reopening" the economy by Easter, even though he has no authority to do this and there's no reason to believe the crisis will anywhere nearcontained by then. He repeatedly promises help is on the way in the form of naval ships, a testing website, medical suppliesand increased testing even though his administration hasin fact done almost nothingto provide those things.

The Senate is passing a bill that, despite Republican efforts tomake it a giveaway to the already-rich, appears to get directaid to people who need it. That should help, but it won't make this crisis disappear. We're still facing widespread infection, many deathsand catastrophic levels of unemployment.

Trump will try to use this crisis to position himself as a strong leader guiding his people through a difficult time. He mustnot be allowed to do this. None of this would be nearly as bad if he wasn't a sociopathic monsterwho from the beginning was more interested in concealing the crisis than fighting the virus. This crisis is Trump's fault, and it is the duty of the media and activists and Democratic politicians to remind the public of this every single day until the election. If we still get to have one.

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Trump wants to play-act the hero, but don't forget: This crisis is his fault - Salon

US President Donald Trump has said that the World Health Organization has "very much" sided with China on coronavirus crisis, asserting that many people are unhappy with the global health agency and feel that "it's been very unfair". President Trump was responding to a question on allegations by Republican Senator Marco Rubio that the World Health Organization (WHO) showed "favouritism" to China.

Congressman Michael McCaul, ranking member on the House Foreign Relations Committee, has questioned the integrity of the WHO's director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, saying "that there were several red flags in his past with respect to his relationship with China." "It (WHO) has been very very much sided with China. A lot of people are not happy about it," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference on Wednesday. Trump was asked if he agreed that the WHO showed favouritism and the US should re-explore its relationship with the health agency once the dust settles.

"I think there is certainly a lot of talk that it's been very unfair. I think that a lot of people feel that it's been very unfair," Trump replied. In a tweet Congressman Greg Steube alleged that the WHO has been a mouthpiece for China during the coronavirus pandemic. Both the WHO and China must face consequences once this pandemic is under control, he demanded. Senator Josh Hawley echoed Steube's view and demanded the same.

"There need to be consequences here. WHO has sided with China Communist Party against the world in this pandemic," he said in another tweet. WHO director Ghebreyesus has faced criticism for praising China's leadership for its "determination to end the new coronavirus outbreak". He has also been accused of conspiring with Beijing in its "propaganda" to hush-up coronavirus cases.

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WHO 'very much' sided with China on coronavirus: Donald Trump - Economic Times

Its true that the media often make mistakes; they are, after all, made up of human beings. Media conventions can be subverted, facts can be misunderstood or misreported, sources can mislead, reporters can succumb to confirmation bias, and editors can fail to see the big picture. For the most part, though, these outlets are trying their best to inform the public.

Trumpist media outlets, by contrast, have created a bubble of unreality where nothing but the most effusive praise of Trump is acceptable, where anyone who disagrees with or criticizes the president is part of a grand conspiracy to destroy him, and where the only facts that exist are those that reflect well on the president. Many conservatives dont distrust the mainstream media because they are biased; they distrust the media because the media do not tell them what they want to hear, and their own outlets have trained them to believe that the truth can only be exactly what they want to hear.

Nor can mainstream media bias explain why many Trumpist media outlets, supposedly so much more committed to the truth than their mainstream counterparts, consciously endangered their audience by disregarding and dismissing public-health warnings. Fox News told its audience that the coronavirus was a minor problem their heroic leader was quickly resolving, while quietly having its staff follow the very precautions its hosts were ridiculing on air. The mainstream press didnt force Fox News to do that.

The coronavirus pandemic provides a rigorous case study in the priorities of most of the conservative press: Faced with a choice between informing their own audiences about dire threats to public health and propping up a Republican president, they chose the latter, because informing the public is not their job. The job of outlets like Fox News is to ensure that the conservative masses believe that their leader is infallible, even if it causes them tremendous personal harm.

As cases began flooding into hospitals and medical facilities all over the country, the president shifted his tone, finally recognizing the reality of the pandemic and the economic catastrophe that threatens both the health and livelihoods of millions of Americans. On Tuesday, Trump declared that this is a pandemic, and that I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. Having denied that the coronavirus was a major issue for months, the president sought to recast himself as an oracle, and conservative media followed suit, shifting their tone from downplaying the severity of the pandemic to praising the heroic efforts of the president to address it.

Wajahat Ali: Where are the masks?

Predictably, Trump drew praise from some cable-news personalities for doing a passable job of portraying a president on television, even as the administrations failures continued to exacerbate the personal and economic toll of the pandemic. This is somewhat understandable; Americans want to believe that their leaders are competent, engaged, and concerned about their well-being. Recognizing that the presidency is occupied by an incompetent narcissist whose major life accomplishment is parlaying an inherited fortune into reality-show celebrity is rather less comforting, but it is the world we live in.

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Donald Trumps Cult of Personality Did This - The Atlantic

Dr. Justin Frank literally wrote the book on Donald Trump's mind and behavior. In "Trump on the Couch,"Frank tracks Trump's life from childhood to adulthood and reveals a man who is mentally unfit in many ways from his intelligence, values, emotions and temperament down tothe deepest parts of the psyche to be president of the United States of America.

In the conclusion of Frank'sbook he warned that Donald Trump would represent a dire threat to the safety, security and future of America and the world. In all, the power of the presidency is too vast and the opportunities for abusing that power are too great for a personality and mind such as Donald Trump's to resist.

On both a day-to-day basis, and in crises such as the Russia and Ukraine scandals and now the coronavirus (all of which are largely self-made and self-inflicted) Donald Trump's poor mental health has only gotten worse. Unfortunately, the presidency, with its uniqueburdens and responsibilities,have not forced Trump to become a better person and to rise to the occasion. Instead, he has been caught in the undertow of a public downward spiral.

Trump's lies, delusions,greed, corruption andmalignant narcissismhave thrown theUnited States and the world into peril as this unstable president has confronted thecoronavirus pandemic in increasingly erratic fashion. It'sa crisis of science and empirical reality that he cannot simplywish away or ignore, much as he has tried.

In addition to "Trump on the Couch,"Frank is also the author of bestsellers about the previous two presidents,"Bush on the Couch" and "Obama on the Couch."He is a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a physician with more than 40 years of experience in psychoanalysis.

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In this conversation, Frank told methat Donald Trump is essentially a sociopath who has no feelings of care, concernor empathy for other human beings. More frightening still, Frank raised the possibility that Trump is notcapable of feeling guilt or remorse. Not only will Trump feel no responsibility for thethousands if not millions of Americans who may die inthe coronavirus pandemic,Frank said, he is likely to blame Barack Obama and the Democrats for the carnage. Trump's followers, Frank warned, now perceive him as an infallible deity, and will obey his commands even at the risk of their own lives.

You wrote a book about the dangers represented by Donald Trump because of his mental health. You warned that he should not become president. Did you believe that Trump's behavior and the damage he is causing to the country and the world would get this bad?

Here is a quote from my book "Trump on the Couch": "Failure to intervene places the nation's people, rights and institutions at increasing risk of ending up as collateral damage in the wake of the externalization of Trump's epic internal struggle."

In other words, the struggle between building and breaking is an epic one for Trump. Trump's impulses towards breaking things has been winning and we are all going to be victims of it. The only way to deal with Trump is to remove him from office. Trump cannot be reasoned with. In many ways Trump is like a space alien, a force totally foreign to our world and human society.

I think this book predicted this, and that the only way to deal with it is stop him. You cannot reason with him. Like I said before, he's like an alien. He is a force.

During these last few days at his "briefings" on the coronavirus, and throughhis pronouncements on Twitter, Trump's behavior has further devolved. He cannot help himself. At this point, hisbehavior islike an entry from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Trump says the media itself hates him. He insists that media coverage of his response to the virus is unfair and negative. Beyond Trump's malignant narcissism and sociopathy lies paranoid thinking.

Trump escalates his attacks. A characteristic of paranoid thinking is rigidity he never gives up his paranoid worldview about whatever he fears attacked by. Thus, the press remains the enemy, and if he feels that the market is tumbling down and is losing the battle against the virus, he escalates his suspicion of questions,feeling attacked more often than not.

In his press conference on Monday, when he had free rein to ask a question himself, he first attacked the press with a question to Dr. [Deborah] Birx. He said, "We have a lot of very angry media all around this room, and they want one of these seats. Because of social distancing we are keeping them empty. Will there ever be a time when all those really angry, angry people who don't like me much to start off with and now they really don't like me will there ever be a time when those seats are full like they used to be?"It's as if he misses them, since paranoid people also need enemies for friends. The paranoid Trump needs them to feel complete, to keep his projected hatred nearby.

On Monday he also tweeted that the cure may be worse than the disease, and that social distancing can wreak havoc on our economy. Will he end social distancing because he needs the attention at his rallies?

President Trump himself is a public health risk. What I mean is that his paranoid behavior risks America's physical and emotional health. Because he is obsessed with the press being out to ruin him, he cannot accurately assess reality even the reality of his own intelligence services. He ignored the threat of coronavirus when presented with it on Jan.24. He didn't even think much about it because it didn't fit with his delusional belief system about "fake news."

There seems to be no bottom to Trump's pathological behavior.

There is no bottom. The only time you know about a bottom in human behavior is when a person reflects back on their behavior. One can say they hit rock bottom only in the past tense. One does not have the perspective in the middle of the journey. Everything that Donald Trump does is making things worse with the coronavirus. He has dismissed the reality of the virus. He was late to respond. He called it a hoax,ignored the experts anddid not order more tests for the virus.

It is very important to understand that if a person has a lifelong history of lying,the first person you lie to is yourself. The reason people lie to themselves is they do not want to face facts and reality. When a person lies like Trump does, they are attacking reality itself on an unconscious level. It even impacts how a person perceives things. For example, Trump could not perceive the dangers of the virus and therefore he is ill-equipped to respond to the pandemic. Because Donald Trump lies about reality so much, he does not have the ability to cope with it.

Donald Trump has told at least 16,000 public lies. He is a pathological liar. What happens when someone with that sickness is forced to confront reality? For example, what does a mind such as Trump's do when he actually sees thousands of people dead from the coronavirus something he very recently suggestedwas a hoax.

In my experience such a person will conjure up new lies. I've actually seen it happen in hospital settings. You can't convince a person out of a preconception if the person has been lying to themselves as extensively as Trump has. It is almost impossible. Donald Trump could see dead bodies lying in the street from the coronavirus and step over them. Trump would say to himself, "Whyare all these people lying around? How did that happen?" Trump would never think that he had anything to do with all of the deaths.

There is a part of Trump that is not even fully aware of the depth of his destructiveness. Trump recently sent out a tweet that said,"The world is at war with a hidden enemy. We will win." Unconsciously Trump is at war with an internal enemy, which is between wanting to be a builder and wanting to be a destroyer. The internal enemy is Trump's inner destructiveness.

The "hidden enemy" is also hidden from Trump himself. Other people see that Trump is the real "hidden enemy."

The hidden enemy is the president of the United Statesbecause he is the enemy of our collective well-being, of our feeling of safety, of our security, of leading the country in a time of crisis.

The coronavirus is just one of many scandals for Donald Trump. There wasRussia, Ukraine and impeachment, his numerous other scandals ofmalfeasance and corruption, etc.How do you connect the dots between these events?

One of the things that happens to every paranoid person and Trump is a very paranoid person is that the more they attack other people, the more frightened of other people they then become. So the more Trump attacks say the press, the more frightened of the press he becomes. The more he attacks Joe Biden, the more frightened of Joe Biden Trump becomes. Donald Trump is afraid of his actions coming back to hurt him.

When a person expresses hatred, and expels it, the hatred does not just dissipate. That hatred can bounce back at you. In psychoanalysis and psychiatry there is a term called the "return of the repressed." The thing that you've forgotten and gotten rid of can come back to get you.

The coronavirus is finally a reality he cannot attack and somehow alter or make go away. The coronavirus is reality coming back to get Trump. Unfortunately, the virus is hurting the rest of the American people and the world. Whatever Trump believes, he cannot stop the coronavirus with a wall.

Trump has gone from saying the coronavirus was a hoaxto claiming he was the first person to have used the term"pandemic" to describe it.How does hismind make such a huge move?

How does a mind like this convince itself? Because he really believes he's the first person to have said it's a pandemic. He really believes it.

Trump also believes he's the first person to realize that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. Trump is like a child who discovers something and says, "Did you know this?" It is all new to Trump, so therefore he thinks he discovered it before anyone else.

When a person such as Donald Trump has a long history of lying to himself, he has eradicated or attacked reality. This means for Trump the coronavirus is a "hoax." It's "fake news." Such claims are how Donald Trump protects himself from reality,especially if that reality is something negative about himself that he wants to reject.

But then reality must seep in. In this case, the coronavirus is penetrating Trump's delusional reality. Now Trump goes from calling the coronavirus a hoaxto imagining himself as some type of savior who was the first person to realize the dangers posed by the virus. Now Trump tells people he will make everything all better. This is very dangerous. Trump believes he can control reality, like some type of god. In clinical terms this what is called a"manic triumph." Trump believes he is going to triumph over the danger that he created. This also explains why Trump said that he is not responsible for the coronavirus pandemic because then he is free to say it is a threat that he alone can stop.

Trump, quite predictably, is now saying thatthe Democrats and Barack Obama are really responsible for the coronavirus pandemic. Well, if the Democrats are the disease, what do you do with the disease? You eradicate the disease. Trump and his mouthpiecesare againencouraging violence against their "enemies."

Yes, it is an encouragement to violence. Ironically, it is the coronavirus which is threatening and attacking Trump when he himself is a germ-phobic person.

In your book "Trump on the Couch" you document Trump's germ phobia.How is he resolving his deep fear of germs and his reaction to the coronavirus pandemic?

A germaphobe is a person who is frightened of germs, and they see them everywhere. The germs unconsciously represent parts of the self that have split off from the whole. It is another manifestation of deeply troubled feelings and beliefs that in some way are poisonous. For Trump, those germs are his destructive impulses.

When he talks about the coronavirus pandemic, Trump does not appear to care about the harm it is causing people. He always defaults to himself and then seeks praise from the members of his court. Trump appears to be incapable of empathy or sympathy or any level of human concern for others.

When Trump is basically saying, "Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!" it reflects a lack of genuine love from his parents, either one or both of them. Such behavior is an effort to compensate oneself by loving yourself more and more and more. That is narcissismor grandiosity.Those are behaviors and feelings which are compensatory for not feeling loved. That describes Donald Trump.

He delivered the eulogy at his father's funeral. Trump said one or two sentences about his father and the rest of the speech was about himself. He does the same things today. None of Trump's behavior as president is new.

Trump has repeatedly shown that he has no internal governor on his behavior. There seems to be a total inability to act in a moral and virtuous way. Is such a life liberating? Is it terrifying? Thrilling?

It is in fact liberating, frightening and terrifying. It's all of those things for Trump. It feels momentarily liberating because, "I've triumphed over guilt. I've triumphed over any anxiety about wrongdoing." And then it's terrifying, because of the return of the repressed. "I'm going to get it back. They're going to come and get me." All that hatred is going to come back at Trump. He fears it. "Allthe enemies of the people, the press, is going to come back and get me."

It is all so terrifying. The destructiveness is terrifying because ultimately you can end up destroying something you may also love. Trump may have loved his Trump Towers, but he's destroying them, one after the other. It truly is an epic struggle in Trump's mind.

Let's assume one of the worst-case scenarios, that the coronavirus may kill more than a million people in the United States. Will Trump have some type of emotional breakdown because of this loss of life? President Lincoln was horribly guilty about all the deaths in the Civil War. Will Trump have similar feelings?

No. It is not an option. Donald Trump does not feel guilt. He is incapable of it. I have not seen Trump ever display any form of guilt for his behavior. If there were a million dead, Trump would still say that Obama did it.Trump would still say the Democrats did it.Now Trump calls the coronavirus the "Chinese Virus." Trump would say it is the Chinese who did it. Trump is never responsible for his own behavior.

Donald Trump learned from his father to never admithe is wrong. That lesson there is also to never have any guilt for one's behavior. One would think that repressing all that guilt would cause Trump or someone like that to have nightmares. But I don't think that Trump does.

Trump leads a political cult. Until very recently, he has been telling his supporters that the coronavirus is a hoax, and that they should go out and hug each other, gather in large groups, and mock the scientists and Democrats.How do we make sense of Trump's followers and the love and loyalty they feel for him?

The followers are listening to their god. One of these people was interviewed and he said if he died from the coronavirus at least he would die believing in Christ. There are many fanatics in the world. They are very disturbed and sick people. These fanatics yearnfor an all-powerful protector. Trump's followers feel safe and triumphant because of him. It is a grandiose self-destructive fantasy between Trump and his followers.

As in other cults, the members are in love with the leader. Trump's followers are very damaged people. As such, whatever Trump commands them to do they will do,even if it means getting sick and dying from the coronavirus.

That is correct. Such a level of mass fanaticism is very disturbing, and issomething that we have not seen in the United States on such a large scale. We have seen it with Jim Jones and other cults. People follow the cult leader to their doom. Of course, there was a similar type of fanaticismin Germany with Adolf Hitler. Trump's followers really needa strong leader to make them feel safe. It could be a strong father figure, a god, anyone who is powerful enough to make them feel loved and safe.

Trump's followers,like other cult members,also want someone who will accept their aggression and destructiveness as being good and normal. These people are devoted to Trump. That devotion is more important than anything else.

What's going to happennext?

The only chance the American people have is to vote Donald Trump out of office.

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Dr. Justin Frank: Trump "could see dead bodies" from coronavirus "and step over them" - Salon